Five policemen have been called to court for the presumed homicide in ‘Cala Cortina’

The agents have to face a bail of 470,000 € for the payment of possible future compensations, or their assets will be embargoed.

Jan 31, 2017 - 1:20 PM

The five national policemen accused of illegal arrest and homicide against a resident of Las Seiscientas in Cartagena, are now formally on the accused bench. The judge in the Instruction Court 4 in Cartagena, Emilia Ros Martínez, has just completed her order to open the oral hearing against the five agents.

Diego Pérez - laverdad.es

In her resolution, the magistrate rejected the latest attempts from the defence lawyers who wanted to archive the diligences, both free and provisional, given ‘as of today, all the rational indications exist (…) to sustain the existence of criminal facts, and the possible voluntary participation in said crimes, of which these subjects have been accused by the Prosecution Ministry and other particular accusations’. Insisting the judicial investigation has not affected the actions of suspicion which surround those policemen under investigation, José Antonio C.G, Rubén Manuel F.S., José Luis S.A., José Carlos M.L., and Raúl A.R., who will have to respond to a popular jury for the presumed crimes of illegal arrest and homicide.

The facts on which the case is founded date back to the early hours of March 11 2014, when Diego Pérez, resident of the Six Hundreds, who ‘suffers paranoid schizophrenia and attention disorder’ phoned 091 to reclaim the Police attendance, reporting he had felt threatened by a group of people and was in shock.

To the place, three patrols from the Cartagena Police Station arrived; the Z-54, Z-56 and Z-57, containing the five suspects and another policeman Gregorio Javier G.M. who died when in preventative prison.

When they arrived in Calle Estanislao Rolandi, Diego was in the street waiting for them, and then the policemen started to search his body and agent José Luis Solano punched him. Then, in common agreement and with plain intention to attack a person’s liberty they forced the victim into the patrol car Z-54.
Instead of taking him to the Police Station or hospital they drove to an isolated area known as ‘Cala Cortina’

Minutes later, the 091 headquarters were told Diego was fine and had been calmed ‘hiding the facts that he was wrapped in a sheet and the three patrol cars were united in their destination with the victim on board.

Then in said location ‘encouraged by violence and causing possible death, making the most of their numerical number, physic and the isolated place, the defence right for Diego were removed as they started to physically abuse him, punching until they fatally broke a vertebra in his neck, and then took the body into the sea from somewhere in the bay’.

The brother of Diego noted his disappearance on the 13th , which resulted in searches being carried out by the National and Local Police and the Guardia Civil ‘who were informed of the agents were accused, and they had agreed to try and hide their crime’

The body of the man was found two weeks later in Cala Cortina. The autopsy determined that ‘Diego presented vital traumatic injuries in facial, cephalic and ophthalmic structures, and died as a consequence of violent human killing, for destroying the central nervous system given the fracture of the C-3 vertebra and fractured C-2 and C-7.

‘After the appearance of the cadaver, recalled the judge, despite having participated in the search and in the opened investigation, those accused agreed on pact of silence, only claiming innocence’

With these arguments, the magistrate rejected the petitions from the defence from their diverse lawyers that the matter be archived, given the facts did not constitute a crime, or even because there was a lack of evidence against the policemen.

Ignoring the above, the judge has place the case before the Fifth Section of the Provincial Court, in Cartagena, to proceed with the date for the opening of the oral hearing. The suspects were released on the honour of returning to the court to register once a month.

The date for the start of judicial proceedings has been set for February 15 by which the joint bail amount of 470,000 € has to be paid.